Uncool Mom was a blog that was active from 2008-2012. Over those four years, I offered up 274 posts about life with two daughters, who are four years apart in age– one was in elementary school and one was in junior high when the blog began, and one was in junior high and one was about to start her senior year of high school when the posts ceased. I created it as a way to vent and to reach out to other moms who I saw seemed deflated during the early teen years, especially those with daughters; they seemed exasperated at the sudden change in attitude their kids were going through, and I was, too.
Eventually, thousands of readers checked in each week to read, respond and/or relate; I worked hard to build a following through quality writing and creative marketing (yes, people actually ordered UncoolMom.com bumper stickers!). By 2012, Uncool Mom had won the “Best Blog in Dallas” award from the Nickelodeon Parent’s Picks Awards and my posts had been “spotlighted” at Salon.com’s “Open Salon”, at BlogHer, on Mamapedia (three times!) and in the Dallas Morning News’ NeighborsGo regional news magazine. Companies were sending me products to review and giveaway, everything from food to luxury sheets to iPods to Broadway touring tickets– I was even one of the first blogs to talk about Warby Parker glasses. Who knew Instagram was just around the corner and the era of “influencers”?!
But one day I just stopped. Life got overwhelmingly busy to the point I got out of “sync” with my posting schedule and I never could quite get myself back in the groove again. (Plus, my kids’ behaviors were literally leaving me speechless, and I always said if I no longer had inspiration/words to write, I wouldn’t force it.) And, in the midst of this “break,” my blog’s host (GoDaddy) made major changes to its blogging platform to the point that it completely “undid” the design/look of Uncool Mom, and I would’ve had to spend a lot of time redesigning and redoing a lot of things to get the blog to look good again. And time was something I didn’t have much to spare then.
I could never bring myself to taking down the site completely. I felt, and still feel, that it’s some of my best writing and that a lot of the themes and content are still relevant to today’s parents, and could still be helpful. And so, now that the pandemic has given me a little bit more time to create my next blog, I decided to clean up this one and offer the “best of,” like a Greatest Hits album. I’ve taken out all the “register-to-wins” and the product reviews, and any other posts “not worthy,” and have left my favorites as well as posts I think offer good information. It’s still not perfect, yet; there are still typeface glitches leftover from when the blog platform changed (sometimes 2-3 different fonts or type sizes in each post), some embedded links may no longer work, and some of my comments to readers’ comments may show up out of order, but I will work through those issues later.
For now, click on the menu in the upper right corner and click on any post title to read the full post. Enjoy this stroll down memory lane if you’ve visited the blog before, and if you’re new to it, let me know if you can relate!
-Uncool Mom